Tribune leader, 21 February 1992
Labour can win an outright majority at the election. Despite
what the pundits say, Labour is not doing badly in the opinion polls; with a
good campaign it is certainly capable of achieving the four-point lead it needs
to gain an absolute majority in the House of Commons. Like party members
everywhere, that is what Tribune wants and that is what we will work to
achieve.
This does not mean, however, that Labour will necessarily
win the outright majority it wants. It is possible that the election will have
some other result: a hung Parliament of some description or a reduced Tory majority.
And it is not an act of disloyalty to speculate about Labour's actions in such
circumstances.
Indeed, in the bars and cafes of Westminster and among
Labour's electoral reformers, talk turns repeatedly these days to the question
of what Labour could or should do If it finds itself the largest single party
but short of an overall majority, with the Liberal Democrats (or perhaps, at a
pinch, some combination of the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish
National Party) holding the balance of power. Labour's traditional position is
simple: Labour should form a minority government on its own and challenge the
Lib Dems (perhaps plus others) to bring it down, perhaps offering a few
succulent policy scraps (freedom of information legislation, Scottish
devolution, maybe a Speaker's Conference on electoral reform) as an incentive
for toleration.
Until recently, most Labour Party members would have
accepted this approach without question: antipathy to anything smacking of
coalition runs deep in the Labour Party. Now, however, there are signs of
heresy abroad. No one senior in the party is saying anything of the sort in
public, but a surprising number of Labour people are mumbling, off the record,
that, given that so little separates the two parties, it might not be a bad
idea to give the Liberal Democrats a cabinet seat and a constitutional reform package
- including a clear commitment to the Additional Member System for the Commons
and a democratic second chamber - in return for five years in power.
Are these would-be coalitionists right? They are certainly
open to the criticism that their scenario is improbable because the Lib Dems
are unlikely to hold the balance of power on their own. More importantly, there
are arguments of principle and party advantage. Labour advocates of retaining
the first-past-the-post electoral system are implacably opposed to any deal on
electoral reform with Paddy Ashdown for obvious reasons.
There are also those who argue that the Liberal Democrats,
particularly after their party conference last year, are an explicitly
pro-free-market anti-trade union party, radically at odds with Labour's own programme
even after the changes of the past four years, and are thus unsuitable
coalition partners. And then there are many who object on principle to the
building of coalitions behind closed doors. Add the argument that there would
be a very real danger of Labour splitting over the prospect of coalition, and
the case against is strong.
But it is not so formidable as to rule out coalition in all
circumstances or on all terms. A centre-left coalition is preferable to a
centre-right one, if that is the choice. The Labour leadership should not tie
its hands during the coming campaign by saying that it would never consider
forming a government with anyone else.
